One thing to remember for your specific situation (the OP has a different group lineup), is that you're very caster-centric. You have a hybrid-with-a-caster-class tank, you have the higher DPS priest, you now have a mage. For you, an enchanter + bard *may* work very well. Chanter twincast aura is going to let the SK and druid twincast their dots, and twincast their nukes more often. Charm aura will help if you decide to charm with the druid and enchanter, and pile on the pets. MR aura will benefit all of your group- or if you want to, you can run the druid version, so you can add in learner's or MR debuff totems if you're dealing with something that you just can't stick anything but Tash/Harmony of Sound on (good if you go a-hunting old raid mobs- goodness knows I had a devil of a time crippling Venom Lord Ksathrax without a kitchen sink of debuffs thrown at him, for example). Combine that with fierce eye, bard aria, druid black wolf, and you're going to have decent spell DPS, so don't feel like you absolutely have to give up on the enchanter if you enjoy it.
Either would work beautifully, however the way I chose was I considered "outside of the box". If I were to play without boxing which would I enjoy more, for me that was ench for multiple reasons that would suit my playstyle. Take a look at your box set, which do you preffer focusing on the most? Then compare your ench and bard, to me it was a basic squishy finger wiggler vs moderate ac melee ( I know so much more to it but on the most basic level that was it) Anyways, posting from work. Didn't read entire thread, my post may be moot by now for you but there is always others in same boat
I could keep the enchanter, but I won't drop the druid. It's my original account with a lot of progression work, unlocks, neat items, and all the veteran awards, in addition to being the gold account having also unlocked the good mercs. I can see your point, a shaman would probably give a better combat performance boost for the group, but I like trying something new Mykaylla ~ I hadn't thought about that. You've got a great point - everything in my group utilizes plenty of mana. The main reason I was thinking about replacing the Enchanter is because, quite frankly, after I debuff and slow an enemy the chanter just sits there looking pretty. I'll hit a DoT macro on the druid (or a healing macro) and then focus on the SK, making sure that I position correctly and maintain aggro. Every now and then I remember to toss more from the ENC, but for the most part it just sits there AFK unless I need haste/voice or to slow something. I think I'll try keeping the enchanter for now, adding a bard with the silver account and then adding a mage as 5th box. Now I need to remember how to powerlevel my boxes all over again
Don't underestimate enchanter dots at high end. Adding in all three of the lines in a macro will give you a bit more dps and some more melee debuff on the mob as well.
Here's the thing. With the last two expansion VOA/ROF you are going to need DPS to progress. The reason why many groupers struggled in the various tiers is due to the lack of DPS. For so long if you just had a tank who could stay up then you could do any content - will with VOA that changed the playing field as a bad round could kill almost anybody on some named (Sep Named for example). So killing mobs quickly became important. With my 5box team I killed every named in t3, t4 voa and also ROF since my return (and that was before I hit max level). Big reason I had success over other gruopers who weren't boxing is I brought more dps to the game. IN the long run you will need some DPS and preferably caster as it's easy to setup macros. I have 4500 aa on my necro and mage and they both are capable of putting out the numbers needed on their own to box group content. SO the big question you have to ask is which would you enjoy playing more? The mage is a little bit better if my SK drops as he can pet tank d own named if I screw up or the merc goes screwy. on the flip side the necro does more overall DPS and the group heals don't hurt. Either way though you can't go wrong. As for ench/bard/. WHen boxing the reality is the bard is more useful. Ench can chain pull amazingly well but with boxing you just won't have multiple mobs in camp ready for the gorup (mezzed mobs waiting to be aggroed as soon as the main mob dies). The bard adds far more ADPS and enough crowd control to do all content. The ench just can't compete in that specific scenario of multiboxing.
it's been touched on but remember bards who are mez'ing or pulling aren't provding adps. and all this talk of pulling is lol. if you have an enc, pull 6 at a time. or 8. cast wave on the first and last targets in XT and you are normally good to go. i've had a bard doing melody for thousands of AA. i think his offense skill is 40. but he turns real dps into beasts. bard + enc ftw.
How's this sound for a good and well rounded box group? *Not super high DPS, but high flexibility... Dru (dps/dots and spot healing) Shd (tank) Enc (whatever it can do) Brd (ADPS and buff songs) Mage (DPS+pet dps / secondary tank) + Healer Mercenary (Good one from gold account) I pull with my Shd usually, but could learn to pull with another class, whichever would be best.
You don't box ench like that though. Not anymore in a typical box group anyway. I did in hot and I think maybe in lower tier of rof. But voa, t2 rof not really.
Replace shadowknight with a 2nd mage imo. The SK does give you the ability to swarm trivial content (basically everything pre-tier 3 HoT) but in terms of facing off against current content, replacing the sk with a 2nd mage would be a much more powerful setup. I'd actually say replace the druid *but* having a real heal class can be handy if you do a lot of instanced raids that do not allow mercs. My personal setup which can beat pretty much everything in RoF is mage/mage/bard/ranger/shaman + merc healer. However 99.999 percent of the time i bench my shaman and instead 4 box the other classes listed + 1 healer merc + 1 non boxed enchanter friend (which playing with a non boxed chanter helps a ton) using that setup we've pretty much done everything there is to do in RoF.
that's exactly how i box in every zone other than bg and kael. and then i don't even bother bringing the enc.
I box a bard so to answer to your questions 1. YES very. and melo Is like autopilot for songs 2. Somewhat with our AE mez but limited to 6 mobs. Otherwise gotta single target em to do it. 3. DPS enahncement, AC, and maybe 1 hp/mana regen. Go with caster merc. better DPS. 4. Don't think so Benefit to change would increase your dps and would have a puller that can fade on demand, port mobs back to spawn point ( which no class but bard has IIRC ) More HP then chanter equipped similar. Also you can have an aura or echo mana/hp going plus a song in med times. Or leave an echo at group. I buff with chanter then camp him. Box my mage, bard and sham with 1 healer merc and 2 dps mercs. Sick combo. I would go bard myself being one who has used both up till about lvl 95 that is.
I boxed enc, bard, ranger, shaman with tank and cleric mercs once mercs came out. (had cleric/war in mix prior to that) . There is not much that this group can't take. Started with enc and shaman box then added Bard as a puller, Bard wound up my main for a couple of years and then I started a Necro Mage box for something else to do. After watching what Necro's can do, I switched to Necro as main. Necro replaced the enc in the group when Bards got group mez. Bard single mez is a challenge as you need to count and switch targets for the recast with out hitting the mob you are trying to cast mez on while you are fighting another mob. Bard mez is not as long lasting as Enc and Group mez comes when you are high level. Can't remember off the top of my head, not till 95, I think. But Bard songs make things much , much better for the group. And the pulling is awesome.
Thank you for the answers . This sounds good. I'm assuming with AE mez I'll be able to assist on main mob and chain AE mez...? Sounds OP =D. Now I'll look up what level I get AE mez lol
Dam no AE mez till 85? Maybe I'll charm adds to keep the dps rolling? Keep in mind I'm only LvL 51 atm
You won't need it once your sk gets his pulling tools. Enchanters are awesome but I just can't provide th level of detail to make them truly useful in my 5 box team. The bard is easy and I just chain pull singles/doubles all day long. As you get into the later level of SOD on you really have fewer situations where mez is mandatory.
The note above about bards being limited to 6 ae mez targets is true for chanters too.. but bards can't keep them locked down. They have a few ticks in between the time that the mez breaks and the gem refreshes. Chanters on the other hand can keep 6 targets mezzed almost indefinitely (barring resists, running out of mana, etc.)
what i like with chanter is the mez who proc a twincast for chanter. ( at higher level ). and 2 auras for added damage , mana reverberation line and twincast aura .. you can pull several mobs , and ae mez , and can mez another one who will proc the chanter twincast, can cast 2 or 3 dd's and mez another one (proc twincast again ),rince and repeat. can also play with charm , who is not that bad even boxing , you can make an audio trigger when charm broke , and if you keep some rune buffs on chanter who proc stun when the rune fade , and pretty easy to re-charm , and you got a 10k + hitter pet ------------>> that's from higher levels tho, but it's pretty easy to level now , not like it was many years ago ). but i guess with your setting a bard with 2 melee merc should add some decent dps.,,,
It's a great concept, but unless you have some special gift for creating reactive macros (if you do, please teach me) then managing all of that in addition to tanking, healing, and DPSing is too much for a multiboxing team... At least, that is my thought on it given what I know so far. I made my two new silver accounts yesterday and took them up to just shy of level 40, having made a Bard and a Mage. Love having my SK already at 85, made swarm PLing fairly fast once I got the bard AE dot and the mage PBAE spells to tag stuff. I'm still debating dropping the Enchanter for another Mage, but I'd still be a heavily caster based group.
well , when one mob is almost dead, you can switch to the chanter fast and target another mobs from the ext target or one near camp and cast the mez who proc the twincast ,,when it s casting u can switch to the SK to attack the next one , then u can start your hot keys on alts, chanter as well since he will fire the twincasts... but i am playing casters toons , who is easier to box than a melee , so it's pretty fast for me.. when mobs is under 20% hp , i switch to chanter to mez, switch to mage and target that mob and cast a dd to break mez and send mage pet right away,and casting hot keys with them on next mob since the 1st one should be dead or about to with 2 caster dps, who benefit from the chanter aura dd and twincast.. all depend how fast you are to place your melee toon on the other mob and start attacking and hot hey with other toons. another great spell with chanter at higher level is the stun who land pretty well, when i inviting a friend who lack on tanking , i am using a stun hotkey with chanter. cast stun , dd , stun , dd , stun . sometime mobs already under 50% hp before he switch to the MT due to the stun who rock. 5 boxing ----------> not sure that will improve your killing rate, since caster merc or melee merc (never used a melee merc ), do decent damage at higher levels . for me , a merc healer , 2 casters mercs ( or melee ) is the way to go , if you got good tanking covered ... at lower levels it's easy , any combo can do well, but when mobs begin to hit over 10k , not all combo 3box or more work well. also all depend if you will stay free to play , those merc are pretty good once they are T5 journeyman, will vary a lot if you stay with T1 mercs. PS : {{ i am not very familiar with progression server tho , i just saw you were palying there }}.
When I have the energy to three box, I pull with enchanter, attack with the sk, use wizard for dps and emergency evac along with 2 mercwars and a merchealer. My DPS is low, likely because those three classes need attention to do DPS. When I swap any one of them out for my 95 bard, DPS goes up noticeably, but only after she got over level 90. Bard AE mezz makes my enchanters envious because it requires no attention to maintain. Bard single target mezz is tricky and you have to pay attention because the mob gets pushed around by it. (I have two 95 shamans but I always prefer enchanters as slowers because VP doesn't blur.) Keep in mind, I alt tab and have incredibly slow reaction times. I'm sure you would do a lot better with the same combos. *.Lee of Povar
